Real hourly wage calculator
A posted hourly rate only divides pay by the hours it covers. This adds back the hours it does not, commute time, unpaid overtime, unpaid prep, and the dollars a job quietly requires back out of the same paycheque, one line at a time.
Worked example — Real hourly wage on $85,000, 6 unpaid hours, a 50 minute commute: $32.58. 40 paid hours, 6 unpaid overtime hours, 50 minute round-trip commute, 5 days a week, pre-tax
Find your own real hourly wage
Start from a paid hours and week count, add whatever unpaid time and job-required spending actually apply, and the rate updates line by line. Nothing here assumes a typical commute or a typical amount of unpaid overtime: every input defaults to zero and the gap only grows from what you actually add.
$85k, 6 unpaid hours, 50 min commute: A salaried role with a typical amount of unpaid overtime and a real commute, neither extreme.
Advanced options 4
The dashed line is the posted rate, which does not move. The solid line is the real rate at your current commute and costs, run across a range of unpaid hours. The marker is where your own inputs sit on it.
What you are actually making per hour
Take the salary, divide by paid hours and weeks to get the posted rate, then divide the same pay (minus any job-required spending) by every hour the job actually takes: paid hours plus unpaid overtime plus commute time plus unpaid prep. On $85,000 with 6 unpaid hours a week and a 50-minute round-trip commute 5 days a week, the posted rate is $40.87 an hour and the real rate is $32.58, a cut of 20.3%. The commute alone adds 4.2 hours a week that the $85,000 does not grow to cover.
Posted hourly rate vs real hourly rate
The two numbers only match when nothing unpaid is added and nothing is spent to hold the job. The moment either shows up, the real rate is strictly lower, never higher, because extra hours only ever grow the denominator and extra costs only ever shrink the numerator.
| Scenario | Posted rate | Real rate | Gap per hour | Share kept |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $62k, no unpaid hours, 20 min commute | $29.81 | $28.62 | -$1.19 | 96.0% |
| $85k, 6 unpaid hours, 50 min commute | $40.87 | $32.58 | -$8.28 | 79.7% |
| $110k, 12 unpaid hours, 90 min commute, $6k costs | $52.88 | $33.61 | -$19.27 | 63.6% |
The $110k scenario pays a higher posted rate than the $85k one but a real rate only $1.03 apart, because it stacks a longer commute, more unpaid hours, and job costs the other two scenarios do not carry. A higher salary does not automatically mean a higher real rate once what the job actually costs to hold is counted.
Real hourly wage by unpaid hours and commute time
Held at $85,000, 40 paid hours, and 5 office days a week. Read down for more unpaid overtime, across for a longer commute; both pull the same real rate down independently and the two effects add.
| Unpaid hours | No commute | 20 min/day | 40 min/day | 60 min/day | 90 min/day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | $40.87 | $39.23 | $37.72 | $36.32 | $34.41 |
| 2 | $38.92 | $37.43 | $36.06 | $34.78 | $33.02 |
| 4 | $37.15 | $35.79 | $34.53 | $33.36 | $31.74 |
| 6 | $35.54 | $34.29 | $33.13 | $32.05 | $30.55 |
| 8 | $34.05 | $32.91 | $31.84 | $30.84 | $29.45 |
| 10 | $32.69 | $31.64 | $30.65 | $29.72 | $28.43 |
With no unpaid hours and no commute the real rate matches the posted $40.87 exactly, shown as $40.87 in the corner. At the far corner, 10 unpaid hours and a 90-minute commute, the same $85,000 pays $28.43 an hour, a 30.4% cut from the posted rate for exactly the same salary.
What this arithmetic assumes, and where it breaks
Everything here is pre-tax
No income tax, payroll tax, or bracket is applied on either side of the comparison. Adding one would not change which rate is higher, only how much lower both numbers land, and it would force this page to duplicate the bracket machinery the take-home pay after a raise calculator owns. Use that page for the after-tax version of a specific salary change.
Unpaid hours dilute the rate, they never buy back pay
Adding an unpaid hour never adds a dollar to the salary side of the arithmetic. That is the entire mechanism: the same annual pay divided by more hours is a smaller number, and no hour here is modelled as earning a share of it back.
Commute and job costs are figures you supply, not estimates this page asserts
The calculator asks for an annual commute cost and annual job-required spend directly rather than deriving them from mileage or a typical figure. For the per-mile version, built up from fuel price and vehicle efficiency, see the commute cost calculator.
A negative real rate is a real answer, not an error
If job-required spending in a year exceeds the salary itself, the real hourly wage comes out negative and this page reports it rather than floors it at zero. That is rare, but it is the most useful thing the arithmetic can say when it happens.
The next question after this one
Commute cost calculatorCalculatorThis page asks for an annual commute cost directly. That one builds it up from round-trip miles, fuel price, and vehicle efficiency, or the IRS mileage rate.Open nextOther questions
- Take-home pay after a raise calculatorCalculatorEverything above is pre-tax on purpose. This is the same paycheque with the bracket and FICA math added back in.
- Hourly to salary calculatorCalculatorThe simpler, no-deductions version: a wage converted to every pay frequency at the hours a paycheque actually assumes.
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More calculators for the same paycheque
The hourly to salary calculator converts a wage into every pay frequency at once, the overtime pay calculator prices a single workweek including the blended rate across two pay rates, and the take-home pay after a raise calculator adds the tax bracket back in.